The kind souls at NYRB Classics have nicely posted the first story from Robert Walser’s Berlin Stories, “Good Morning, Giantess!” on their Tumblr. The collection got a nice little write up in this weekend’s New York Times, too.
Ich bin ein Berliner
Remembering Tomie dePaola
Naomi Fry reflects on celebrated children's writer and illustrator Tomie dePaola, the author of more than 270 works for children.
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These narrators are conspicuously powerless
Over at Prospect, Leo Benedictus takes a look into the subversive “hindered narrators” in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Room, and Pigeon English.
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Civilization of the Spectacle
“If culture is purely entertainment, nothing is of importance. If it’s a matter of amusement, an impostor can undoubtedly amuse me more than a profoundly authentic person. But if culture signifies more than this, then it’s worrying.” Sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky interviews the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa about the contemporary collapse between “high” and “low” cultures.
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“You’re allowed to laugh.”
A new installment of #LitBeat, in which Steve Almond gives a hilarious and exuberant reading in Moscow, Idaho.
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Cracking the Code
The world’s oldest undeciphered writing is currently in the process of being deciphered.
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Jane Eyre Goes Global
Matthew Reynolds examines how Jane Eyre became a global phenomenon, as well as how translators approach the thoroughly English text.
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